


Taking the Rough with the Smooth

by imaginarycircus



Category: Lizzie Bennet Diaries
Genre: F/M, Friendship, Future Fic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-28
Updated: 2013-01-28
Packaged: 2017-11-27 08:56:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/660136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imaginarycircus/pseuds/imaginarycircus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>prompt: Future fic, Lizzie and Darcy having dinner with Bing and Jane. A birthday fic for Javi, aka <a href="http://yes-nope.tumblr.com/">yes-nope</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Taking the Rough with the Smooth

It's all Bing's fault, at least that's the story that Darcy is sticking to. It started off as a perfectly pleasant evening. They're sharing a rental in Montego Bay to celebrate Jane and Bing's second anniversary. The front of the house is all glass that pivots opens and it's almost like they are dining outside, even though they are in the house. The evening breeze and the truly amazing dinner that Jane cooked have made everyone loose limbed. Darcy finds himself sprawling in his chair, sipping the last of the wine. He split the end of the bottle with Lizzie, who has an amazing level of alcohol tolerance despite her tiny size. She's telling Jane and Bing about something GiGi did--a story Darcy has heard before, so he watches the movement of her mouth, the way she tells a story with her entire body and sometimes when he stops and just quietly watches her, he falls in love all over again. It's like stepping off a cliff in the dark that you didn't know was coming, but instead of smashing on the rocks below you're swooped up and saved by something so amazing you have no idea how you lived without it before her. 

Since he hasn't been following the actual content of the conversation he doesn't know what's coming when Bing pulls out his phone, until he hears Lizzie's voice saying, "I'm Lizzie Bennet and William Darcy doesn't like me. At all." It breaks him out of his contentment. He sits up straight and he can feel his chin threatening to tuck in against his neck. He doesn't like that Darcy; he doesn't want to be that Darcy, or even be reminded that he once was. 

"Do you remember that?" Bing is beaming and turns the phone so Darcy can see Jane fairly faithfully reproducing his inept attempt to get Lizzie to dance with him, although Jane makes him more charming than he ever actually was. 

Lizzie catches his eye and he can't help but return her affectionate smile, slightly self-conscious. He is fluent in Elizabeth Bennet now and he easily translates her expression to mean, "Yeah. I'm still sorry about that, but you know that I adore you now." 

Bing came to the videos late, but he loves them for some reason that nobody can really fathom. He doesn't rewatch or mention the later ones in which Jane is bereft, but the early ones in which Lizzie rips Darcy up and he and Jane are in starry-eyed love? He replays at the drop of a hat. 

Lizzie stops Bing from playing the next one. "Hey. Bing. Since Jane cooked--let's clear the table and take care of the dishes." Bing, of course, jumps to his feet and thanks Jane for the marvelous dinner before whisking away a big stack of plates and flatware. 

Darcy stares into his wine, glowing gently golden in the candlelight. He's come so far with Lizzie. They aren't those people anymore and it's uncomfortable to remember how they were--who they once were. Especially how much she hated him, how much pleasure she took in hating him. Sometimes it's still hard to wrap his mind around the concept that she loves him, but she stood up in front of three hundred people and swore it, took an oath to love him always. He likes to hold her left hand so he can feel the solid reality of their relationship on her finger--her wedding band--plain platinum, and her engagement ring--an antique, four generations in his family. 

Jane squeezes his hand and when he looks up--her kindness washes over him. "I think he likes to watch those videos because he misses you. They remind him of spending time with you." 

Darcy starts at this. It's true that they don't see each other very much these days. Bing is an intern at Columbia-Presbyterian in New York. He and Lizzie live in San Francisco. He knows that Bing makes friends easily, almost too easily, but often they are surface friendships. The slough right off as circumstances change. Bing has few deep rooted and enduring relationships and Darcy knows that he is one of the rare few. Normally he considered it an honor and to be honest it's proof that he wasn't a truly reprehensible person before Lizzie, because Bing was his friend. Bing saw the good in him. 

Darcy knows all of this and yet his mood has soured and he nods at Jane, tries to smile, but doesn't quite make it. "Excuse me," he says and heads out onto the patio with his wine. He attempts to lose himself in the rhythmic crash of the waves, the sweet scent on the breeze, the humidity that makes his skin soften and eases all his muscles. But his teeth are clenched tight and his shoulders ache from how stiffly he's holding them. He's bracing for impact. Something he thought he'd stopped doing quite a while ago. Lizzie, learning to trust Lizzie, to let himself be loved and seen by Lizzie--had freed up the large part of himself that was clinging to fear and loss. She didn't heal him, exactly. It's more like she allowed him space to heal himself. 

He hears the soft shush of bare feet along the flagstone and waits for Lizzie to slip her arms around his middle and press her face between his shoulder blades in that was she does when she wants to comfort him, but it's not Lizzie. It's Bing. He stands next to Darcy and looks out at the dark stretch of water silvered by moonlight. 

"I'm really glad we came down. Thanks for inviting us." 

Darcy nods like an invisible hand is forcing his head up and down. 

"I'm sorry if watching the video made you uncomfortable. That wasn't my intent." Bing sounds like he's apologizing to a puppy he accidentally kicked. 

"I don't like to be reminded," Darcy says. 

"Because she didn't love you then." Bing nods. 

"No, because I didn't love myself." The words sound horribly sentimental and like something you might hear on an afternoon talk show, but there is a grain of truth in them. 

Bing looks stunned. He even takes a step back, but quickly moves forwards and slides his arm around Darcy's shoulders. "Well, I loved you. You've been my best friend since our first year of high school. I've always thought of you as a brother and now you actually are. You will always be one of my favorite people on the planet." 

"You don't have an adequate basis for comparison. You hardly know most of the planet." Darcy knows he's being a little petulant now, but it's been a long couple of months at Pemberley and his reserves all depleted. 

"I don't have to," Bing says in that wise way of his that cuts though his good humored facade. 

There is something lodged in Darcy's throat and he can barely swallow around the ache of it. He should tell Bing that he feels the same, that he loves him too, but those words have always been very difficult for him to say. The first time he said them to Lizzie they exploded out of him like a cork from a champagne bottle. 

They stand in a familiar, but unfortunate silence staring out at the water for a while. Bing has hands in his pockets and rocks on the balls of his feet. 

"I've been incredibly fortunate," Darcy says. "I have GiGi of course, but you and Jane and Lizzie are truly my family now." 

Bing understands and pats him on the back before returning inside to help Jane make tea. He hears a lighter tread and knows it's Lizzie. She slips her arms around his waist and presses up against his back, resting her cheek between his shoulder blades. He has one of those moments of clarity when all the pieces snap into place and the picture is revealed. He understands why Bing loves those old videos, because if they hadn't been those people then--they would be themselves now. They would not be here together like this. Darcy places his free hand over Lizzie's and trails his fingertips across warm metal and diamond. Bing is right. All the pain and suffering was worth it--if it brought them here. His chest is full to bursting and he wishes he had the words to express all this emotion. He doesn't. He turns in Lizzie's arms and realizes it doesn't matter. She takes one look at his face and reads all of it. She has the words. She says, "You know, I think I loved you, even when I thought I hated you." 

It's exactly what he needed to hear. He sets his wine glass down on the ground and lets everything he is feeling travel out through his hands and his lips. Lizzie is always criticizing stories for telling instead of showing. He figures that rule applies just as well here. Her dress leaves her shoulders and much of her back exposed. He knows the topography of her intimately, each mole and freckle--the tiny scar from the time Lydia threw an assembled Lego house at her, but he touches them all anyway, until Lizzie breaks the kiss. 

"Jane's made tea and cookies. We should go in." Lizzie looks up at him, her chin against his chest. 

"Snickerdoodles?" He quirks an eyebrow. 

"Nope. White chocolate macadamia." 

"Those are my favorite," he says. 

"She knows." Lizzie picks up his wineglass and slips her hand into his and leads him inside. He looks around the table and takes two cookies. "Thank you," he says and because they know him so well--they all hear the words trapped just beneath the surface.


End file.
